Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140301
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
WEDDLE SEEKS GOP BID FOR SEAT IN CONGRESS
City Councilman Gary Weddle said Thursday that he wants Rep. Rick Boucher's job, and he promised that he wouldn't stay in Washington quite as long as the Abingdon Democrat has."You can choose between me and a man who has been in Washington too long," Weddle said, officially declaring his candidacy at a news conference at the Radford Best Western.
Weddle, owner of men's clothing stores in Radford and Blacksburg, said that Boucher, D-Abingdon, has been in office for 10 years and "seems to have succumbed to the classic Washington syndrome."
Boucher, he said, "seems to view himself no longer as our representative to Washington, but as Washington's representative to us."
Weddle, 31, said he was making two pledges to the people of the 9th District: to serve no more than four terms - eight years - and to "vote to hold the line on income taxes."
Weddle, a graduate of Blacksburg High School and Virginia Tech, is the third Republican seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Boucher.
Lew Sheckler, a Radford University professor, and George Bell of Blacksburg, chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party, announced earlier.
The 9th District Republican convention is scheduled for May 9 in Wytheville.
"You can choose between me and a man who has never met a tax increase he didn't like," Weddle said, "most notably in voting for the budget accord of 1990, which contained the single largest one-year tax increase in our nation's history."
Weddle compared his campaign to "the long journey into the unknown" faced by Christopher Columbus, a campaign "aimed at rediscovering the real America.
"It was only in the New World that new ideas could take root," he said. "Ideas of personal liberty - academic, religious and economic freedom that never before had gone further than the drawing rooms of the rich intellectual classes."
Weddle said the government seems to be out of control and out of touch, mired in economic recession and a broken welfare system.
He said the government needs political reforms and tax cuts to stimulate work, savings and investment, and welfare reforms to give people incentives to get off welfare rolls.
"The system is broke, but we can fix it," he said. "We're Americans."
Keywords:
POLITICS